


Covered Faces

by lilolilyrae



Series: Just You And Me - Until The End. [8]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 2020, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Face Masks, Future Fic, Immortal Wives Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Prompt Fill, aka present time, covid 19 pandemic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilolilyrae/pseuds/lilolilyrae
Summary: The Guard in the year 2020, dealing with all of the current apocalypse scenarios.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Minor joe/nicky - Relationship
Series: Just You And Me - Until The End. [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980067
Comments: 13
Kudos: 56





	Covered Faces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonflowery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflowery/gifts).



> Inspired by moonflowery/daniwouldnever asking '[what kind of masks would the members of the old guard wear??'](https://lilolilyr.tumblr.com/post/634983488639156224) # _have you guys discussed this? #anyone made some art? #i feel like it’s important #i know for a fact Andy would wear a black mask and make everyone around deeply intimidated #nile would be very responsible with her mask #quynh would wear an extremely fashionable and expensive mask #hgjfkghfjgh #the old guard_  
>  The problem with writing a fic about a set of headcanons is you end up writing a scene about each headcanon or character instead of the tiny ficlet that had been planned xD also- didn't I initially set this series in 2016 to avoid the Covid mess? xD well, I guess now I can write pre- and post-2020-apocalypse ficlets in this series xD 
> 
> Anyways  
>  _THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LIGHTHEARTED_  
>  Look where it got me

Less than four years after Quynh made it out of her iron tomb and after she found Andromache again- just as she is slowly starting to get used to this new world- everything changes again, and not for the better.

A pandemic is spreading across the planet, and it doesn't stop for anyone or anything.

Disease and death aren't new to Quynh, it isn't even the first plague she saw humanity suffer from, but it is the first of this size she witnesses, maybe the first of its kind at all.

It probably won't be the last pandemic of this scope, however... and isn't that terrifying? The fact that, in the modern world, people travel so much quicker than they used to just means that what would have been a local tragedy in the past spreads everywhere, now...

Of course, the illness is not a danger for the immortals themselves, but it is never nice to see humanity suffer.

It also comes as a shock, especially to Quynh, that in this world that seems so _pristine_ and _advanced-_ as if they have already reached the futuristic times that have eradicated all illness, the way it is in the sci-fi shows Quynh has started to like- that this world can still suffer such a catastrophe.

She should have known better.

Over the past years, Quynh has already noticed how people- well, some select _evil_ rich individuals- are ruining the planet, running it to the ground, but the extend of this _apocalypse_ is still a shock. So no, right now humanity is far from perfect, and at the moment she cannot linger on sci-fi fantasies.

No, now, there are far too many things they have to act on.

_So much death._

Every time she catches a glimpse of the rising death toll in the news, every time she sees the pain and suffering in front of her in real life, Quynh is so very glad Andromache is really immortal again.

* * *

At the moment, Quynh is in England alone with Andromache, helping out in the neighborhood and sewing masks at home while Andy works in a local clinic.

The team had split up early on in the year- at first, Nile, Yusuf and Nico packed their bags to aid in the wildfires in Australia while Quynh and Andy went on a couples getaway to Vietnam, just the two of them- to check out old hideouts, speak a language that isn't English for once, and most importantly to revel in their closeness, their love and togetherness.

Sadly, they didn't get to enjoy the peace for long.

Just as the fires in Australia had quieted down and Nile had gone to her flat in Canada while Yusuf and Nico had left for Greece, the news of the pandemic had really set in.

Travelling had become harder, they had to rely on less legal means of transportation to get to the places they thought they were needed in most.

And they had been needed just about everywhere.

They split up again to reach more disaster zones at once, even Yusuf and Nico going there seperate ways for a while, but Andromache and Quynh stuck together- it had been years since Quynh had come back from the ocean, but they are still wary of leaving the other for more than mere hours at a time even now.

Becaus of this, they worked together at first, too, in makeshift hospitals all over the globe, until Quynh couldn't stand the work around the sick and dying anymore and she moved to sewing while Andromache stayed at the hospitals.

Quynh is still relieved every day when Andy comes home unharmed, and she thinks her love is feeling the same about her.

While it is hard to stay in contact when everyone is busy, they at least check in with Copley every week to make sure one person would at least notice if someone went off the grid.

Every other month, they let Booker know that they're all fine, too- that Andy is still alive. Andromache still won't tell him that she is immortal again, and just shrugs when asked what the man is up to, but Quynh caught her checking videos from security feeds Copley sent them on multiple occasions, and they know that Booker is working in a children's hospital now when he isn't busy drinking himself to death.

Much too soon after that, the fighting in the US started.

Sure, Quynh already knew that that country is far from perfect, but the extend of the violence by the state really shook her to the core. She wanted to help in the protests immediately, and they met Nile in Seattle while Yusuf and Nico were still travelling through Europe to aid in the pandemic, and then instead of joining them got sidetracked by the protests in Poland and Armenia...

While they had been working in the thick of things, it really didn't feel much different than it did in the past, when a catastrophe struck on a smaller scale or when they had been fighting in an uprising against a tyrannic monarch- only when she was watching the news and sees how it's _everywhere,_ Quynh had to stop and try to breathe for a moment.

Every time she sees the numbers of Covid-deaths on screen, she felt herself shut down.

Humans aren't meant to understand such scopes. Not even immortals.

"You need a break," Andy had told her when she had found her hyperventilating in front of the TV screen. "And there are other places we can help right now, too."

So they went to England for Quynh's 'mental health break', as Nile calls it, while Nile herself stays in US, on the front lines of the protests while Copley helps her to organise bail-funds and supplies.

Quynh still wants to help in some way, and while she is sewing, she let's donation videos Nile showed her run on repeat in the background.

Her fingers start to hurt from gripping the needle too tightly sometimes, but they always heal immediately. 

At the beginning when she started sewing masks, while Andromache looked for a new hospital to work in that would accept her credentials without as much as a doublecheck, Quyng had to force herself to make them plenty and practical instead of focusing on the design aspects. There are so many shiny fabrics, so many pretty prints and different design possibilities!

Now, every movement is plain muscle memory.

* * *

In August, the possibility of a full lockdown is discussed in the news. 

Quynh almost breaks the needle in her fist.

It's not like she had been going out much in the past months, anyway, but- to be locked in in their tiny flat, unable to go anywhere, unable to escape? So she can't ever go out into the nature, which is not so easy in the city in the first place?

While she likes _living_ in their cozy apartment, she would hate to be _confined_ to it.

"We can leave, before it comes to that," Andromache reassures her when she catches on to her worries.

Quynh nods. "Please."

Andy consults with the others, and they decide to meet Yusuf and Nico in Canada- in Nile's house, actually- as they also need a break.

As most commercial flights are being cancelled, they leave the country through not-so-legal means on cartel plane-

"They're just smuggling drugs not people and honestly, at least weed should be legal anyway," Andy grumbles when Quynh complains about her choice of transportation. 

"Andromache, these people are smuggling _cocaine_!" Quynh hisses disapprovingly.

"Do you want to go to Toronto anytime soon or not?" Andy grunts. 

Quynh sighs and adjusts her face mask.

Not that they need one, and the drug runners probably won't care about any rules and safety regulations, especially when they're just sitting with their cargo, but it is all part of playing mortal and vulnerable.

Plus, it helps to obscure their faces from recognition- less work for poor Copley, who had his work cut out for him trying to erase them from video footage all over the globe in these past months while also cooperating with Nile.

While Quynh had expected not to like having something cover her face, she finds she doesn't really mind the masks.

She's no stranger to suffocation, and this isn't it at all. In the right fabric and with enough spares to change them every few hours, they can even be quite comfortable.

And even if not- she would not want to play any part in causing innocents harm, and given that the immortals are not sure whether or not they are able to pass on the illness to mortals...

At least her mask doesn't itch- Quynh has terrible memories of ill-fitting and obstructing facial coverings in the past, so when the news of the Covid virus first arrived, she made sure to design her own face masks to fit her perfectly- and to go well with her favorite outfits, too.

She has an instagram account for her fashion creations for over two year now, and when she made the masks, she also posted one of herself wearing one- to the immediate ire of one James Copley.

"My face is half covered, James!" she had indignantly told him and refused to take down the picture. Quynh is the only one who is really always calling him James- Nile awkwardly alternates between that and 'Copley' depending on who else is listening while Andy, Joe and Nicky stick to the last name.

Now, on the plane, snuggling closer to Andromache, she does wish she could take of the mask for a moment so she could kiss her love properly.

While she can't see Anh's smile under her black mask, the expression in her eyes is soft, and Quynh can't wait to arrive, get out of the masks and snog her senseless... even with Joe and Nicky there, who will undoubtedly mock them for showing just the kinds of public displays of affection they used to make fun of the guys for.

They're never going to let that go.

Smiling at the thought of their ridiculous family, Quynh turns to Andy and presses her masked lips to hers, taking a picture on her phone to send to the others:

' _On our way!_ '

Andy chuckles and lies down with her head in Quynh's lap to try and sleep for the duration of the flight.

At Nile's, when Andy is tiredly fumbling with the spare key to the front door, it is actually Nile herself who hears them and opens the door for them.

"We didn't know you were here!" Quynh exclaims, pulling the younger woman into a hug. "Weren't you in New York last we spoke?"

"Yes, I only came here last week, I wanted to surprise you! ...Well, Copley said I needed to take a week off or else I'd get activist burnout, immortal or not, so I figured..."

She's interrupted by Joe sticking head into hallway.

"Quynh! Andy!" he hugs them both, grinning.

"Finally, we can have dinner, I helped Nico cook lasagna- oh, did you make that?"

Quynh takes off her mask and shows it to him. "Yes! Pretty, is it not?"

After Yusuf suitably admired the mask, he disappears again to let Niccolò know that they arrived.

Nile nods, too- Quynh's mask really is very pretty, and it matches her shiny coat perfectly. 

"Oh, I have several," Quynh explains when she asks, "this one, I just bought the coat twice and used the fabric to make masks as I couldn't find it anywhere else... I used it all up, I didn't waste anything!" she adds when Nile raises an incredulous eyebrow. 

"Apart from our money," Andy coughs behind her back, and Quynh lovingly elbows her into the side.

"You also like pretty masks?" she asks Nile, nodding to a flowery print hanging on a nail next to the doorway.

Nile nods. "I got that one in three different colours- No, before you ask, not for different outfits, just because they get gross and sticky when you breathe into one too long!” she laughs, and Quynh joins in.

"Yes, that they do. Now, we were promised food?"

After dinner, Andy sits down on the couch with her own sewing project while Quynh lets Joe show her his latest sketches.

Nile finds Andy a few minutes with a needle between her teeth, untangling a thread that has gotten twisted because she left it too long.

"You're sewing, too?" Nile asks, surprised. "I thought that was just Quynh."

“What? I lived through times where everyone made their own clothes. This is nothing, just turning some old shirts into something useful...”

"...can you show me how?" 

"You don't know how to sew?" Andy looks up, surprised now. I thought you made a scarf the other year."

"Knitting, yes, but I've never really sewn anything before apart from patching up my brother's jeans," Nile explains.

Andy nods, then throws a scrap piece of fabric at her. "Well, settle in then!" 

* * *

A while later, Quynh comes back to snuggle Andromache on the couch, and the others decide to go for a walk to give them some privacy. 

It's funny- now that she is in a house surrounded by trees and allowed to go out whenever she pleases, Quynh doesn't feel the urge to join them on their walk, rather burrowing into Andy's side with a content smile on her lips.

Joe, Nicky and Nile get dressed, including, of course, their masks- Nile is wearing the one Andy just finished as her own sewing project is still a little chaotic, Joe and Nicky are wearing identical stylish black masks. Quynh known all too well that this is thanks to Yusuf alone as Nico would still be wearing a dirty white dollarstore monstrosity if his husband hadn't intervened...

Once the front door falls shut behind the others and they are alone in the house, Quynh lies down and pulls Andy on top of her, who lands with an "Oomph!" 

Quynh chuckles, pressing their lips together before Andy can complain about being manhandled and brushing her almost shoulder-length hair out of her face.

"Hmmm," Andromache purrs when they pull apart, pressing a kiss to Quynh's eyebrow before settling on top of her more comfortably.

Quynh then wraps her arms around her wife and hugs her as close as physically possible.

"I'm glad you're with me, through all this," she whispers into her hair, "I'm really glad you're here."

**Author's Note:**

> Btw, I had to google a timeline of this year's events to write this, and doesn't that just say it all... still no guarantees for accuracy
> 
> Feel like this one had a bit of a tough start with all the tragic and no dialogue, but... That's just 2020 to you. All tragic, no dialogue. 
> 
> I ended the story in August because I did Not feel like getting into US election stuff, even though that did end nice ish... Living through it once was enough xD
> 
> If you scrolled this far, please click kudos and leave me a comment! <3


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